


Shine

by Ruby_Wednesday



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Body Paint, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Smut, M/M, Makeup, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:36:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Wednesday/pseuds/Ruby_Wednesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Kings Rising. Damen recovers. Laurent plays with paint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shine

**Author's Note:**

> Because I love these two and I'll never get over "filthy painted slut"
> 
> Un-beta'd. Please forgive any errors.

Earlier when the sun was bright in the sky (and every other time he had stepped into the King's chambers) Paschal had warned Damen that he should stay still in his sleep to prevent any further damage to the knife wound. Damen found this ridiculous. As if he could control how he moved when in slumber. Especially a drug induced one.

“I'll make sure of it,” Laurent had said, and Paschal withdrew. “I'll tie the King of Akielos to the bed posts it need be.”

Damen found this less ridiculous but chose to keep his mouth shut. He was injured, after all. 

And Laurent was...adjusting.

At least they had taken to informing him when he would be drugged now. Purely for medicinal purposes, of course. But, well, that's how it should be with kings. For the rest of their lives, Damen and Laurent would have total control just by virtue of their status. 

When Damen woke, the sky outside was twilight turquoise and his sleep-heavy eyes came to rest, as always, on Laurent. Since the bells had rang, he did not have to look far to find the King of Vere. A few centimetres, at most. And when they were in private, it was quite unusual for him to not find himself looking back into a pair of blue eyes. 

Laurent was facing away from him, perched on a low wooden bench with carved birds on the legs. The Ios heat tested Laurent's disposition. He was far more used to the cold. In public, it manifested in little more than a colouring of his cheeks or sweat at the roots of his hair. He still trussed himself up in Veretian clothing, though the fabric had become thinner. In private, however, between day meetings and evening events, he had taken to pulling a long robe over his long body and letting it float around him like something caught in a permanent breeze.

Not an unpleasant sight to wake up too. Damen took a moment to admire the drape of the robe over Laurent's shoulders. It had slipped a little. Not unpleasant at all.

Damen heaved himself up. The ache in his wound was minimal, really. He had endured far worse. It was the effort of leaving sleep that was a struggle. 

He never did think his time as King would begin with regular afternoon naps.

“I can hear you huffing like an old mare,” Laurent said.

“Yes. That's what happens when one has ears.” 

“You are meant to be careful.” Still not turning around. “Stay still.” 

“Laurent, are you --”

“Now I can hear you fussing. Believe me, I am fine. No-one has bothered me, insulted me or touched me against my will.” One of his long fingers toyed with something on the desk. A pen, perhaps. Damen could not make it out. “You are quite lucky no-one has touched you.”

“I am very tempting.” Damen put his hands behind his head.

“Oh, no. The cook's grandmother wished to rub your toes for luck.” His voice changed. “All of your people wish to see their King.”

“They have seen me,” Damen said. “They saw me raise flags and string up bodies. Then they saw me put on a crown with my cuffed wrist. They saw me throw keys into the crowd.”

“Yes, yes. Your kingliness is outstanding. But that will never be enough for them. They worry for your scars. Your injuries. Those circles beneath your eyes. The voice of a snake prince hissing in your noble ear.” Laurent turned around. Damen almost expected to see bitterness on his face – that he did not yet have those loving subjects in Vere and perhaps he never would shed his ice cold reputation. For Laurent was someone you needed to spend time with to love, and a King could never know that many people. 

His face, however, was blank as a fresh fallen snow. Damen remembered the villagers at the border who threw petals at Laurent's feet. 

Damen was distracted by Laurent's arms. There was, where he had pushed the sleeve of his robe up to to his elbow, between the cuff and the bright white fabric, a series of colourful swatches in beachy browns and blues.

“Finger-painting?” Damen asked, quite endeared. Laurent liked books once, still, and it wasn't too far a connection to think he would like painting too. 

“Did you know there are all sorts of face paints?” Laurent asked. “All colours. All purposes.”

“No, I did not.” Damen felt his face fall. He hated paint. “You hate paint.”

“It has uses. For example, it can hide tiredness. Bruises. Scarring, even. A slave told me that she used it quite often. Sorry, former slave.”

“Slaves in Akielos are not mistreated.”

“But they may still be bruised. The particular girl I was talking to, she told me she quite liked the paddle.”

Leave it Laurent to sniff out the kinkiest people in the palace. 

“The people know I have scars.”

“So they will never accept me.”

“You underestimate their love for me.” Damen smiled. “And my hatred for paint. It was nearly worse for me than the shackles or the --”

“Whip?”

“For the mind.” Damen watched Laurent gaze down at his arm. When he moved it, the paint glimmered on his pristine skin. “Because of the ... because everyone can see.”

“But if everyone couldn't see.”

“Laurent.” 

But he had turned his back again and began to gather whatever paint paraphernalia he had acquired. Damen began to worry he had somehow upset Laurent. 

Until Laurent unfurled a cloth onto the bed and let a rainbow of pots and brushes tumble out. “Move over. If these break, the sheets will be destroyed.”

It would not be the first set. 

Damen shifted. Laurent did not pay heed to his injuries now. 

Damen remembered the inn at Nesson. The glint of a sapphire. Further back, the burn of being watched and admired while painted like a china doll. Laurent, austere, never seen (aside from the once) wear any more decoration than his his hair and a circlet of gold on his head (and later his wrist.)

They had talked of armies and treaties and brothers and etiquette in the days since the bells rang out again in Ios. They had not talked of the Regent. The mention made Laurent coil like a snake about to strike. It made Damen feel like the stupidest, cruellest man in the world. (And may, while reprimanding the council, resulted in the first case of popped stitches.)

“Have you ever worn paint?” Damen asked, casually. 

“I was very young once,” Laurent said. “And I liked how men admired me.” He picked up a bejewelled handmirror and hid his face from Damen. “I was young once and ... confused by rejection.”

Damen froze. Coping. It was that or another of those rages that tended to lead to troublesome situations. 

“Come on. If you turn to stone every time you hear something you don't like, we shall have to live in the sculpture gardens.” Laurent's wrist dropped the mirror so it hung limp in front of his throat. “It is over.”

“I should have ---”

“You were very far away, then.”

“Seen.”

“Hold the mirror. I want to try something.” 

Damen caught it and angled it at Laurent's lovely face. The reflection was a little shocking, still. One of those faces was enough to bring men to their knees. 

“No, at yourself.”

Ah, less interesting. Damen's hair was longer now. He had taken to shaving twice a day. Laurent fiddled with one of the pots and then, in the mirror, Damen watched Laurent's thumbs come toward his face, as if made for gouging, and then smear gold glitter across his eyes. He had to close them. He only felt the pressure at his lips.

“What do you think?” Laurent asked, lightly.

“The master painters have nothing to fear.” But Damen looked on. He felt his blood surge. “Your turn.” He flipped the mirror. Laurent pursed his lips and glanced at the stains on his arm. 

“Very well.” He picked up a brush. And a pot. Then a thinner brush and darker coloured paint. His fingers were as nimble, his eye as calculating, his aim as precise, as with everything else he approached. A mind for details. Then, Damen was looking at Laurent and Laurent looked the same but gilt-edged. A flick of copper-gold to make his blue eyes pop. Shadows beneath his cheekbones and glimmer above. Glossy lips. Glowy clavicles.

Damen lost his breath. His blood rushed through his veins, straight to his cock.

“I wager,” Laurent said. “You never complained about female slaves when they wore paint.”

“I was different then.” Damen thought of blue silk, and then an exaggerated masculine shrug. “I was...unaware of many things.”

“Such as?” Laurent flicked his wrist and Damen set down the mirror. 

“That one day a gorgeous Veretian prince would cuff my wrists and never let me go.”

“Technically, I was not the one who cuffed you. And I did let you go.”

Damen shrugged. “Did I not hear you threaten to tie me to the bed?”

“Threat. Promise. Where is the difference?” Lazily, Laurent smiled and stretched one slender leg across the bed. He still held his shoulders stiff. He looked down a lot. 

While Damen pondered where to nudge this new thing next, a knock came to the door. Laurent froze. Damen fumbled for a cloth but there was none, so he had to wipe his face with Laurent's fine spun robe. His people may accept a cuff and scars but the paint would be too much for this region.

“Open,” he called. Pallas cracked the door and hovered. “Yes?”

“Exalted,” he said. “Forgive me but --”

“Spit it out,” Laurent snapped.

“Nikandros asked me to inform you that the issue in the eastern borough has been contained.”

“Thank you.”

“Also, the merchant guild will join you for supper. There has been some... offense regarding the tender for cloth supplies.”

“Thank you.” Damen said, again. “You can stand down.” He could not suppress a smile when the door was shut again. “Do you think someone is messing with him?”

“Lazar is,” Laurent replied, tersely. The shimmer did not hide the flush on his skin.

“Oh, my. Are you shy?” Damen poked Laurent in the rib. He smiled, a little. Then he locked the door. There was no mistaking his heightened breathing. The fabric was quite thin. Damen did not need to strain to see the outline of Laurent's fledgling erection. 

“I am King.” Laurent looked down. “I still have the earring. I thought to – but no.”

“No,” Damen agreed. He pushed himself up on his elbows. The sheet slipped down to his waist. That was thin, too, and Laurent's eyes strayed. “The paint is more than enough.”

“Lie down.” Compliance. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Not in an unpleasant way,” Damen replied, honestly. He pulled the tie on Laurent's robe and got a slap on the back of his hand for his trouble. Not unpleasant either, despite the sting. “Are you just going to sit there?”

“Perhaps.” 

“Can I?”

“I said lie down.” There was a long silence, as tended to happen around Laurent. For one who possessed a mind so sharp, he certainly took his time making decisions. Once Damen thought him quick, impulsive, but now he knew it was just that Laurent had usually already sifted through all the possibilities long before anyone else. 

Laurent ran the backs of his fingers along his collarbone, then down his chest. His jaw twitched a little when his knuckles brushed a nipple. Laurent was sensitive. And responsive. Which brought Damen utmost joy. Damen thought if he had skin as reactive as Laurent, he would never stop touching it instead of concealing and avoiding all the time.

Most of the time.

Laurent traced the fine line of hair that ran from beneath his bellybutton.

“Soft,” he murmured. 

Slowly, then, Laurent took himself in hand.

That was new. 

Damen felt his throat flex and swallow as Laurent's hand moved in time with the carefully steady rise and fall of his chest. His bronzed eyelids and darkened lashes were close to closed over his eyes. His cuff slipped down his slender wrist with the movement. It shone in the light. 

“You --” Damen began.

“Yes?”

“You are always so beautiful.”

“You are a sap,” Laurent replied. His grip tightened but his movements slowed. “Continue.”

“In all our times together, I've never seen you do that.” Damen had jacked himself, because he was greedy, or both of them, because he wanted to feel Laurent or wanted him to feel good. 

“There has not been that many times. Yet.” Laurent's eyes closed now, the glimmer on his face incandescent in the candlelight. “There are many things we have not done. Toys, for example. Ties. I quite like the thought of kneeling over your face and fucking it.”

Damen had to touch himself. He put his hand under the sheet.

“No,” Laurent said. “Watch.”

Damen ached for want of touching. He took his hand away, and instead watched Laurent's fist as it slipped up and down his cock. Traces of metallic paint transferred from his fingers to the straining skin. The tip leaked. That was good. Damen did not know if Laurent could come like this. He wanted it for him, badly.

“Do you do this often?” Damen asked. Then, feeling brave. “Did you think of me?”

“No.”

“That's cruel. I thought you found me attractive.”

“It is.” Laurent ground the words out. “Not something I usually do.”

“You should,” Damen said, licking his lips. “You should touch yourself. Well, really you should let me touch you but --”

“I am bored,” Laurent said, in Veretian. “By Akielon approximations.” 

Profanity came more easily to Damen in Veretian. “You look,” he said. “Expensive. Untouchable. Like a pet from the filthiest fantasy. A whore from the fanciest brothel. Do you know how many men get hard at the thought of you? How many fantasize about you when they're fucking other people? They will never touch you.” 

Laurent jerked his head in an infinitesimal shake. Either an answer or a way to tell Damen what he was saying was not enough.

“And they don't know you,” Damen continued. “They'll never see what I see. When you fist your cock like that, when you thumb the slit, when you thrust your hips. The way you spread open for me – fuck, I know what you taste like. I know what you like. I know how to kiss your neck like a maiden while I bend you over and --”

“Damen,” Laurent gasped. His hand was a blur. “I'm going --”

Damen had caught his wrist before. It had not ended well. But this time, it would. He yanked Laurent's hand from his cock as he started to come. The white streaks of his spilling splattered onto Damen's muscled abdomen.

Panting, Laurent fell forward and pressed both hands to the mattress. 

“I--” he began.

“I know.” Damen tipped his chin up, so Laurent could look at his face. It seemed sometimes, as if Laurent expected to see something other than unparalleled fondness there and Damen was determined to teach him otherwise.

Laurent inched forward and, without any warning other than that Damen knew his ways well enough, took the length of Damen's stiff cock into his mouth. It was warm, wet, perfect. The sight of him was breathtaking as always but the addition of the glow on his skin, sweat and paint and glimmer, was overwhelming. Laurent's lips were wet and shiny. Damen bucked his hips. 

“More,” he mumbled in Akielon. “More.”

Laurent pulled back. Candleglow flickered against his face. To Damen, he looked like something summoned from a dreamscape – pleasure and torture in one impossible package. He cupped his balls and grinned against the head of his cock. 

“I think,” he said, like he had all the time in the world. “That you like words too.” Damen strained. Laurent stuck out his tongue and swiped along Damen's cock. “Look at you,” he continued, stroking now. “Wanton. Desperate. My come all over your stomach.” 

“Please,” Damen said.

Laurent complied by drawing Damen's dick deep into his mouth. Briefly.. “What did I call you once?” he asked, rearing back. “That's right. Filthy.” Stroke. “Painted.” Stroke. “Slut.”

Damen twitched and spilled into Laurent's hand. Another pump and more to mingle hot with the cooling pools on his stomach.

He let his head fall back against the bed and laughed. 

Laurent sat very still by his legs. Damen waited. He felt his insides sink a little, even while buoyancy of connection and climax still make him light. 

“Laurent,” he said. “Lie down.”

But Laurent left to fetch water and a cloth from the wash stand.

“Lie down,” he said again, when he returned. “Please.”

Laurent sat. He dipped the cloth in the marble bowl then conscientiously squeezed away the excess water. 

“You know I don't mind it,” Damen said. Laurent said nothing. He wringed the cloth in his narrow fingers. His eyes shifted, then steadied, and he used the damp cloth to wiped the paint away from his face. 

“I will lie down,” he said. “For a moment, only. We do have dinner.”

He settled carefully into the space Damen made on the bed. There was a space when he stretched his arm, beside his ribcage, that seemed to exist only for Laurent to fill. 

“I am --” Laurent began, then stopped. 

“I don't mind any of it,” Damen said. 

“You are too nice, you know.”

“The most lusted after, untouchable man in all the land just brought me off with his mouth,” Damen said. “I am not nice. I am lucky.” He reached past Laurent so he could wipe himself off with the gold stained cloth. “Also, I am sticky.”

Laurent laughed into the crook of his arm.

Damen was very lucky. “Hand me one of those brushes and the kohl paint,” he said. “And close your eyes.”

Laurent executed only the first request. “I prefer not to close my eyes.”

“Fine. Look. Do not laugh at my penmanship.” Damen dipped the fine brush into the pot and brought it to his skin above his hip. Conscious of being observed and the awkwardness of the angle, his hand was not steady. But he move it all the same and sketched a small capital L on the taut muscle. 

Laurent pressed his lips together. 

“Have I not marked you enough?”

“Something to think about while we bicker with traders at dinner,” Damen said.

“I – I would do the same,” Laurent said. Then, his face changed. Emotion faded to warped amusement. “Oh, I get it.”

“What?” Damen asked. “And do not mention Lazar again.”

“The King of Akielos just wants me to attend to him tonight.” Laurent's regal tone was back. “There is no way Paschal is changing your bandages now.”

“He has seen worse,” Damen said. He blew Laurent's soft hair off his forehead and watched as his lips went slack. Little things made Laurent's face change in little ways. Damen was starting to enjoy puzzles. Tricks. Laurent things. He put the wooden brush between his teeth, sideways like a bit, and shifted to hover above Laurent. 

“Animal,” Laurent said, smiling. “Do not think you --”

“Don't want me to write on you?” Damen asked, as Laurent twisted beneath him. Laurent still had his arms flat on the bed, his robe open to show the length of his creamy torso. “Why show so much skin?” 

Laurent sucked in his breath. He turned his head, slightly, exposing the sinews of his neck. Damen dropped the brush, dropped his weight on top of Laurent, and sucked down hard on the side of Laurent's throat until a satisfying bloom of blood stained the surface.

“Marked,” he said, smiling against skin. “Good thing your ostentatious Veretian coats have those ridiculous high collars.”

“You tricked me?” But Laurent sounded proud. “Pass me the mirror.”

“I'm not moving.”

“Oaf. You'll crush me.” Laurent narrowed his eyes. “And you should know, dearest, that out of respect for the disgruntled merchant guild I had intended to wear one of those -” He sneered the word, “ _chitons_ for dinner tonight.”

Damen rolled off Laurent. “You still could. After all, you're not shy.”


End file.
